In an e-mail to MedBlog before its opening last month, public relations officials outlined the unique option their ProCure Proton Therapy Center in Oklahoma City presents to Houston patients, who’ll only have to travel a “relatively miniscule distance” for more access to the ballyhooed new treatment, a beam of radiation that pinpoints tumors with great precision. To illustrate the need in Houston, it claims:

* The most conservative estimate puts the number of Texans who could benefit from proton therapy at 17,676 (in reality the number is probably close to triple that).

* Right now the five centers in existence in the entire country can only treat 7,000 to 9,000 patients per year. (M.D. Anderson treats around 1,500 patients per year).

* Assuming every center in the country were only to treat Texans, they’d still have to turn away approximately 10,000 patients a year.

Whatever the accuracy of the marketing campaign – M.D. Anderson officials say they could handle more patients than they’re currently receiving — the real question is, does American healthcare need another proton center in this region? This is a therapy, after all, that, with the exception of prostate cancer, currently treats mostly rare cancers yet requires a big investment: proton-beam accelerators are the size of football fields and typically cost at least $100 million.

Many hoped the line could be drawn at a handful or two of academic proton centers, strategically distributed around the country, serving those patients who’d most likely benefit — and conducting studies to determine whether the therapy warrants the hype and can be extended to other, more common cancers.

The for-profit Oklahoma center, bringing the number of U.S. facilities to six, with an additional four under construction and even more in the planning stage, suggests that’s not going to happen. Leonard Arzt, executive director of the National Association for Proton Therapy, says there’d be more still if not for the recession and foresees a day, not far off, when there’ll be a center in every major metropolitan area.

What’s your opinion? Would you make the trek to Oklahoma City? Think anything that potentially reduces radiation’s side effects is worth some extra expense? Or already despair at cancer bills going through the roof?